The fascination with the singles draw at a Grand Slam tournament is as much warranted as losing sleep over what may be the latest haircut Andy Roddick will impose upon his legion of Aussie fans.
Headlines all across the nation's prime time news coverage abound with the depth of unkindness inflicted by the mean old draw upon the Australian players, with perhaps the exception of Sam Stosur. That noted exception is hardly a ringing endorsement of the court skills of Sorana Cirstea one feels.
Let's face it, any player of the female persuasion would be a tough first round match up for the cardboard cut out of a US Open champion, and the Romanian is indeed a female. But I must be realistic - things do become easier for her should Sam win through the early rounds. It's only former Grand Slam finalist Marion Bartoli in the fourth round before Petra Kvitova awaits her in the quarter finals.
Underlying all this preposterous predicting is the tiny assumption that seeded players will win all their matches against lower ranked opponents and thus create the sumptuous contests that the recipes within the draw have directed.
Take one Belgian 4 time Grand Slam singles champion, add a slightly suspect back, and mix well with a Chinese Roland Garros winner. Bake the product in an open heat, covering well if the temperature reaches a certain level. Serve with one tennis ball, two if necessary.
This is the likely 4th round match between last year's finalists Kim Clijsters and Li Na. (or Na Li depending on which school, website or scoreboard to which you went) The 5th seed Li was very close to defending her title in Sydney last night only to be screamed off the court by Vika Azarenka, so is very much one of the in form women coming into Melbourne. Also remember that the runner-up in Sydney has gone on to make the final of the Aus Open in the last 3 years (winning the last 2).
Much has been made of Bernard Tomic, mainly because there is no one else in men's tennis in Australia of which to make anything. Well Bernie's been doing OK, losing in Brisbane to the eventual winner Andy "he of the fewest smiles granted a human being" Murray, before acquitting himself immaculately at Kooyong in the glorified hit-up between 8 of the best players in the world too lazy to fight for ATP points under pressure in meaningful tournaments.
The draw damaged Tomic according to experts - unnamed but most likely newsroom summer holiday temps asked to provide some headlines to poorly motivated sports editors. Well maybe he could have asked for a potentially easier opponent to play first up, but one of the guys from the tennis club down the road, who the draw had initially arranged for Bernard, had double booked and instead is playing a round of golf. So the contingency is 22nd seed Fernando Verdasco, the former semi-finalist here.
OK a little perspective should be placed into this discussion - it was 3 years ago that Verdasco played a legendary match against Rafa Nadal that saw him centimetres away from the Aus Open Final. Tomic was barely 16 at the time. In the time elapsed since then, Tomic has improved to the point where he nearly earned a seed for this year's Open, and Verdasco has never seen the same glory, indeed has fallen to 5th ranked Spaniard in the world. Fernando has not beaten a top ten player since his win over countryman Almagro in Switzerland last July - his only such success for the year.
If the draw did no favours it failed to do them for Verdasco, a player desperate for court time not having played competitively for over 2 months.
The draw is merely a facility - to win a Grand Slam singles tournament a player needs 7 wins (more if you want to create history as a qualifier) and sooner or later one of those wins will need to be against a top player. If you draw a top player early enough it just may be to your benefit because he or she may not have peaked. So do as the cliche master says and treat each match as tough. For Roger, Rafa, Serena, Petra and co, let the cliche kick in after a few rounds.
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